Brief discussion on ebXML

XML Author: ZDNET feature
Date: February 26, 2002


E-commerce, also known as English e-business, is one of the most fashionable and commonly used words in the current technical field, but do we really understand e-commerce? What is the real meaning of E-commerce? In essence, the so-called e-commerce, in fact, is to adopt the Internet automatic operation and integration of conventional business transactions a way
。 At present, a new protocol called ebXML is becoming more and more interesting as a global standard of conventional commerce, and this novel E-commerce protocol is based on XML and Web service patterns.


A new standard?

At first glance, ebXML does seem like a brand-new technical standard, but that's not the case. It is United Nations Center for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (Un/cefact) and Organization for the advancement of St The ebXML agreement was initiated and developed by the two organizations of ructured Information Standards (OASIS). All two institutions have the capacity and the international to create a truly unified standard for meeting global business needs. The purpose of creating ebXML is to achieve a unified global trading system. For this reason, ebXML can be viewed in many ways as a new generation of EDI (Electronic data Interchange: Electronic-Interchange).


Overview

An operable ebXML architecture consists of a number of components. First, ebXML is based on business process modeling, because ebXML is business-oriented, so ebXML can be more easily integrated into business operations. In addition, by building the business process and describing these business processes with ebXML, organizations can adopt a more service-oriented architecture that uses registry services to share business messages in a transactional manner.


Business-oriented process

"Business-oriented process" means analyzing and understanding the business transactions described by ebXML. Like the almost completely outdated predecessor of EDI, ebXML uses a consistent, standardized approach to many routine business processes. Because this is a global program that illustrates trading between trading partners, the analysis of business processes must reflect the various aspects of the business process across multiple institutions.


Modeling

Modeling is the process of creating logical models to represent data and transaction flows while examining various aspects of the business process. Modeling involves the following aspects: Understanding what the data represents and how the data is converted. Modeling combines workflows with integrated services. ebXML modeling is based on Un/cefact modeling Methodology (UMM). This modeling approach uses a scenario described by Business Operational View (BOV) and Functional Specification view (FSV). It also uses UML (Unified Modeling Language) to illustrate different business processes and data patterns. BOV provides a means of describing business data and business rules, while FSV describes service interfaces, messages, and protocols.


Service-based architectures

A service based architecture is a way to create a comprehensive application, and this approach can make the interface of an application more robust and flexible than traditional integration measures (based on data storage and APIs). Unlike the proprietary API for functions, services provide a loosely coupled approach to bundling business processes. This service based architecture enables enterprises to more accurately model their real business services and processes with technology interfaces.


Registration Form

The registry is a key component of any service-based architecture, and the registry is more relevant to the ebXML architecture. A registry is a place to store information about business information and business services. The registry takes many forms, including UDDI. UDDI implements methods for querying and acquiring information about business and its services, while also supporting the use of services described by ebXML. The registry is not equal to UDDI. It can also be built on the basis of CORBA, in the latter's architecture, to access the CORBA standard binary Object Services, the object can request the proxy orb to complete access to the location of operations and proxy tasks.


News

One of the keys to understanding ebXML is that it must be clearly understood that business processes are made up of transactions, and that transactions are made up of messages. A simple transaction is the atomic record of multiple messages. All types of messages can be created and illustrated with ebXML, such as order forms, invoices, payments, catalogs, and so on. ebXML's core component dictionaries provide a rich collection of data types to define the individual data that makes up a message.


Summary

One night time is not to change the world, global trading companies want to change the world can not but face the ebXML surging trend of development. EbXML combines the standards of EDI, the flexibility of XML, and the availability of Web services. You can visit the ebXML website for more information about ebXML.